The Renaissance was a revival of the old classical styles, and it is not surprising that it first showed itself to a marked degree in Italy. The Gothic style had made comparatively little headway in Italy, where it was regarded as barbarous except in some of the more northerly towns, such as Milan and Venice. The style had more or less coincided with a period of primitive commerce. With the Renaissance the complex commercial organization of ancient Rome began to be revived by the towns of Tuscany, especially Florence. Feudalism disappeared, and the bourgeois merchants and financiers of the town rose to power and influence. Money began to circulate, banks were established, checks and bills were honoured over long distances, factories were opened, and men grew rich enough to buy and commission works of art for interior furnishing from those who owned their own workshops, employed assistants, and were no longer reliant on a system of patronage. With the rise of the town and the invention of gunpowder, the fortified country house became obsolete.

In and around Florence the new commercial civilization was most highly organized. The old Greek and Roman manuscripts had been preserved, not only by the Christian monasteries but to an even greater extent by the Muslims, and soon after 1350 these began to find their way into northern Italy. Men became increasingly dissatisfied with the spiritual outlook of medieval Christianity, and the old Greek curiosity and philosophical speculation began to revive.

The Renaissance was, in fact, a return to the mainstream of Western art after what could fairly be described as the Gothic interregnum. Nevertheless, a thousand years lay between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, and the classical styles of the Renaissance bear the same kind of resemblance to those of Rome as modern Italian bears to Latin. They are similar, but by no means the same thing.

The Renaissance brought back the Roman vocabulary of ornament, although the emphasis was now sometimes in different places. The classical orders (columns with base, shaft, capital, and entablature) were borrowed, and adapted to dress the new architectural style. Architects became highly skilled in the treatment of space, and decoration often played a major part in defining and enriching their vigorous spatial effects. Classical architectural forms were used in plasterwork, inlaid woodwork, and painted decoration as well as for staircases, doors, windows, and fireplaces, which formed increasingly important and elaborate features of interior design. Decorative details inspired by the antique were also used, executed in a wide variety of techniques; garlands, caryatids (statues of women used as supporting pillars), lion masks, grotesques, reclining amorini (cupids), cornucopia (horns overflowing with flowers or fruit), arabesques (entwining scroll and plant motifs), and trophies of arms are among the most familiar. Floors of coloured and patterned marble paving are frequently integrated with the overall decorative scheme. Modelled stucco, sgraffiti arabesques (made by cutting lines through a layer of plaster or stucco to reveal an underlayer), and fine wall painting were used in brilliant combinations in the early part of the 16th century.

In Venice the transition from Gothic to Renaissance building came less abruptly, as demonstrated in the Doge’s Palace, where a Gothic exterior is found in combination with a late 15th-century facade on the east of the courtyard and a series of High Renaissance council chambers, famous for wall paintings by the Venetian painters Paolo Veronese and Tintoretto. Wood panelling with flat pilasters and a molded frieze forms the lower part of the interior wall decoration, with the fine series of historical and allegorical paintings, above, divided into panels between painted and gilded moldings and pilasters. The ceilings of a later date are particularly richly painted, their heavily scrolled carved and gilt cornices and framing introducing a touch of the Baroque style. Windows with twin semicircular headed frames surmounted by a lunette (a semicircular wall area) and fitted into a third, larger round-arched opening are a typically Venetian feature of the waterside palaces. In these, as in all the great Italian houses of the time, the works not only of the finest painters of the period but of the sculptors, goldsmiths and silversmiths, wood-carvers, bronzeworkers and ironworkers were used to embellish the principal rooms. Silks, embroideries, and cut velvets were used as hangings and upholstery, together with elaborately cut and framed looking glasses and carved gilt pendant chandeliers, as in the Palazzo Corner-Spinelli, Venice (1480). Costly carpets were imported, and much fine linen was in use. Trompe l’oeil (realistic) effects of perspective were achieved in the painting of walls and ceilings and also with intarsia (inlaid wood) decorated panelling such as in the study of Federico da Montefeltro, formerly at Gubbio, Italy and now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York City or in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino (completed about 1500), where a startling effect is created simulating open cupboards full of books.

During the Renaissance, Venice became a glass-making centre and introduced many new techniques. Blue glass with fine enamel painting dates from the end of the 15th century. Excellent engraving was done with a diamond point as soon as glass of sufficiently good colour was produced, by using manganese to neutralize the colour introduced by impurities in the raw materials. Such glass, which was called cristallo from its fancied resemblance to the hardstone known as rock crystal, is the origin of modern crystal glass. The Venetians also imitated coloured hardstones in glass. Glass made white and opaque with tin oxide was sometimes used for enamel painting in the style of porcelain, and clear glass with opaque white threads embedded in it in lace-work patterns was called vitro di trina. The Venetians also made mirror glass of excellent quality; in the 17th century they supplied the mirrors for the Galerie des Glaces of the palace of Versailles. Large sheets, however, were not practicable until the French discovered a method of making plate glass late in the 17th century, when the national factory of Saint-Gobain was founded.

During medieval times, Italian wood-carvers had achieved a high level of skill in the decoration of churches; now they turned to secular furniture, for which they employed oak, walnut, cypress, and a new, rare, and expensive wood—ebony. (In 17th century France, the craftsmen skillful enough to be entrusted with this wood—who were also makers of cabinets—came to be called ébénistes, a term that remains the French equivalent of the English “cabinetmaker.”) Many ancient Roman furniture-decorating techniques were revived. Inlaying with a variety of coloured woods, with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell, with a mosaic of coloured stones known as pietra dura, and with painting and gilding in addition, ornamented the finest furniture. The chest (cassone; see photograph), often commissioned on the occasion of a wedding, was decorated with elaborate painting and gilding, sometimes with a large pictorial subject and sometimes with elaborately carved work, which was later coloured. Italian furniture in its design often made use of architectural motifs. Cabinets were often exceptionally luxurious, with such elements as caryatids flanking central doors, arcades of semicircular arches, and triangular pediment tops. The interiors were sometimes small models of architectural interiors, with mirrors inset to give an impression of spaciousness. Silver furniture, no longer extant, was used in considerable quantities in late Renaissance times, usually crafted from plates of silver beaten over wooden formers.

An innovation in Italy, which rapidly spread throughout the rest of Europe, was tin enamelled pottery, known in Italy as majolica and farther north as faïence or delft. Colourful dishes were often painted in a style known as istoriato (history painting) with mythological and biblical subjects. As some of the subjects were taken from engravings of Raphael’s work, this pottery became known during the 18th and 19th centuries as Raffaelle ware. The majolica potters, the best of them located in Tuscany, made extensive use of grotesques, which show the style at its best.

The old Roman fashion for small bronze figures was revived during the Renaissance, and the fashion for these in interior decoration continued almost to the end of the 19th century. The earliest were fairly exact copies of excavated classical bronzes and may have been forgeries intended for sale at the time as genuine Roman work. The art developed rapidly. Before the 16th century, bronzework was done by the goldsmiths, and, as in most goldsmiths’ work, general effect was subordinated to meticulous detail. After 1500, when bronze became popular for lamps, candlesticks, sconces, inkstands, small freestanding decorative figures, and furniture mounts, treatment of suitable subjects developed along the lines laid down for full-sized sculpture. Many small bronzes were made, some of them in the grotesque style.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the revived classicism of the Renaissance began to be modified, and eventually the style divided into two distinct paths. One remained faithful to tradition. The architect Andrea Palladio took ancient Roman works as a model, basing his designs on the theory of proportion laid down by Vitruvius in the 1st century BC in the Ten Books on Architecture. The second path was initiated by Michelangelo and led by way of Mannerism to the Baroque style. In both these latter styles, a deliberate exaggeration of forms displaced the strict logic and precision of the High Renaissance and aimed to convey freedom of movement and to involve the spectator in the drama of the design. Mannerism had only a limited influence on interior furnishing, as in the bronzes by Cellini and by Giambologna. Poses are often strained, the torso twisted, and the musculature emphasized; the favourite Mannerist subjects are violent ones, such as the rape of the Sabines and Hercules slaying Antaeus.

Baroque was the style of the Counter-Reformation and was intended by the Jesuits to express the temporal power and riches of the Catholic Church in contrast to the austere doctrines of Protestantism. The theatricality of the Baroque style soon attracted the attention of princes, who wanted it to be used in the palaces they built. Coloured marbles were used extensively, frequently in combination with bronze and rich gilding. Coloured glass windows were often used for lighting special features. Walls were sometimes painted to appear to be a continuation of the interior, giving an impression of spaciousness. Certain materials were often simulated by others: scagliola, for example, is a mixture of marble chippings, gypsum, and glue that was widely employed to imitate brecciated marble. What appeared to be richly coloured marbles were often no more than painted wood. Drapery was frequently imitated in carved marble, and wooden columns, the purpose of which was purely decorative, were painted like marble or some other exotic stone. Marble or stucco was made to imitate brocaded hangings, as in the Sala Ducale, Vatican, where an effect of space from limited means is created. Basic techniques were unaltered, but all restraint in their use vanished in bold theatrical effects and sensual luxuriance of modelling. Walls became curved, pediments were broken (i.e., with central part omitted), columns and pilasters twisted until the buildings seem to come alive with movement. Bernini exuberantly combined rockwork, figures, and draperies with columns, panelling, and vaulting.

From Italy these styles spread across Europe, where they were absorbed in varying degrees and tempered by the national or local taste and genius. Many Italian designers and craftsmen travelled and worked abroad in France, England, Austria, and Spain.

France

From the middle of the 15th century, ideas from Italy began to change the face of French buildings; this change came gradually, first in the applied decorative detail superimposed on basically Gothic designs, then extending to a symmetry and regularity of the whole. Indeed, one of the basic differences between the Renaissance in France and in Italy is that in the latter the revolution in style involved, from the very outset, the whole conception of design. The centralization of power and the brilliance of French court life was consolidated under Francis I (1515–47) and had already resulted in patronage of artists and craftsmen from Italy. Since the need for churches had been fulfilled in the great age of Gothic building, the king and his court rivalled one another’s magnificence in building new châteaux in the early Renaissance style. Stone and timber were readily available, with masons and carpenters skilled in their use.

Among the earliest attempts in the new manner are the additions made by Francis I to the Château de Blois. The spiral staircase, with its own open stonework tower, may have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci, who died nearby at Amboise in 1519. Even at this early stage, the decoration of the staircase ceiling with carved bosses (an ornamental ceiling projection) featuring the monogram and heraldic device of the king shows a typical French contribution to Renaissance decoration. Such shields and monograms formed an important element in many decorative features, being used in wall and ceiling panel design or on the large carved stone chimneypieces. The fine galleries of Francis I and Henry II (1547–59) in the royal Palais de Fontainebleau illustrate the increasing elaboration of applied decoration and colour. The flat ceilings are of wood, coffered, coloured, and gilded in a variety of geometrical forms outlined with fine moldings. Molded panels enclose paintings on the upper section of the walls, and molded or carved wood panelling the lower parts, as in Italy. Floors are of hardwood strips, sometimes repeating the pattern of the coffered ceiling above. Benches supported on consoles (ornamental brackets) are designed as part of the overall scheme of wall panelling. Italian artists had been employed at Fontainebleau and elsewhere, influencing the contemporary French architects toward a more Italian conception. Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio decorated the Galerie de François I, while the hexagonal coffered ceiling in the Galerie de Henri II was designed by the French architect Philibert de l’Orme. The architects Sebastiano Serlio and Giacomo da Vignola, together with the goldsmith Benevenuto Cellini, all worked for a time in France, and much of the decorative work in the châteaux of the Loire valley was executed by Italian craftsmen.

In the early 17th century and during the long reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), formality and magnificence became paramount in the life of the court. Suites of large rooms elaborately decorated provided an opulent background for the King and his courtiers; such suites usually consisted of a vestibule, antechamber, dining room, salon, state bedroom, study, and gallery. Staircases were stately and spacious, offering a fitting approach to the main rooms. Decorative schemes incorporated the fittings, hangings, and furniture with that of the room.

The Baroque style was admirably fitted to express ideas of luxury and pomp. It inspired the building of some of the finest palaces erected in Europe since the days of Imperial Rome. The palace of Versailles built in the mid-17th century and widely imitated, led to the French court style in interior decoration and furnishings. Versailles was intended to be the outward and visible expression of the glory of France, and of Louis XIV, then Europe’s most powerful monarch. His finance minister, Colbert, set up a manufactory that made works of art of all kinds, from furniture to jewellery, for interior decoration. A large export trade took French styles to almost every corner of Europe, made France a centre for luxuries, and gave to Paris an influence that has lasted till the present day. The vast initial cost of Versailles has been more than recouped since its completion. Even Louis XIV’s most violent enemies imitated the decoration of his palace at Versailles. In 1667 Charles Le Brun was appointed director of the Gobelins factory, which had been bought by the King, and Le Brun himself prepared designs for various objects, from the painted ceilings of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) at Versailles to the metal hardware for a door lock. (It should be noted that at the Gobelins, as elsewhere in France, furniture was designed by artists or architects who had no practical experience of manufacture, whereas, in the great age of furniture making in England, most designs were made and executed by the cabinetmaker himself, who had an intimate knowledge of his material.)

Though the Baroque trend is well established in the Versailles interiors, generally speaking it was regulated in France by an underlying restraint that seldom permitted decoration or movement to dominate entirely. Besides the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles, the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre is an example of magnificence in decoration. The vastness of these rooms and the lavish use of marble, plasterwork, and painted ceilings (with the addition at Versailles of mirror glass panels) created an effect of overwhelming grandeur.

Among the architects and artists working at this time were Jean Berain, André-Charles Boulle, Jean le Paultre, Robert de Cotte, and Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Their work continued in the later period in which Baroque ornament was transformed into the airy, delicate Rococo of the mid-18th century. The beginning of this more fluent treatment can be seen in the work of Robert de Cotte at Versailles and the Hôtel de Toulouse, Paris. An immense variety of materials was used for the inlaid and decorated furniture; in a piece by Boulle, for instance, the designer employed—in addition to the tortoise-shell and brass inlay—ebony, copper, lapis lazuli, green-stained ivory or horn, and mother-of-pearl.

Despite its freedom from onerous restrictions, the Baroque style had preserved the classical idea of symmetry. Not until the early decades of the 18th century were there marked departures from the notion that an object divided vertically should consist of two halves that are mirror images of each other. The Louis XIV style embodied a passion for symmetry, but with the Regency of the duc d’Orléans, which began in 1715, asymmetry became one of the features of contemporary decoration and one of the major aspects of the Rococo style. The principal designer in this style, who was largely responsible for its development, was Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, a goldsmith and ornemeniste. It is no accident that many objects in Rococo style, including furniture, look as though they had been designed by a metalworker. It has been said that Rococo began when the scrolls stopped being symmetrical. The influences that brought about this revolutionary concept are worthy of consideration.

Beginning in the early decades of the 17th century, Chinese porcelain and lacquer were imported into Europe in ever-increasing quantities. Porcelain, especially, attracted many distinguished collectors, including most of the royalty of Europe. This increasing use of Chinese art objects in European decorative art provided a powerful influence with no trace of classical tradition. Soon after 1650 the Dutch began to import porcelain from Japan, at first decorated in blue, but toward the end of the century in polychrome, painted either by, or in the manner of, Sakaida Kakiemon. This was widely sought, and even more highly valued than Chinese porcelain. When Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, bought a palace early in the 18th century to house his collection, for instance, he called it the Japanische Palais, and in France Louis-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc de Bourbon, established a factory at Chantilly to imitate Japanese porcelain. The decorations of Kakiemon were markedly asymmetrical, as were the painted lacquer panels that were imported to be made into screens and furniture, and there seems no doubt that this feature also influenced European Rococo art.

Despite the quantities in which it was imported, the demand for Oriental porcelain could not be satisfied, and European potters sought desperately to discover the secret. The first factory to make porcelain in the Oriental manner was at Meissen in Saxony, patronized by Augustus the Strong, but soon many small factories began to spring up in Germany, Austria, and Italy. France had several factories making a modified type of porcelain, the most important being the Sèvres factory, owned by Louis XV and patronized by his mistress, Mme de Pompadour. The first English factory, at Chelsea, was established as late as 1745. Porcelain was probably the most important expression of the Rococo style in the first half of the 18th century, with bronze and goldsmiths’ work closely following in second place; indeed, this period might well be called the age of porcelain. Rooms entirely decorated with porcelain still exist. These included not only vases and figures, but also mirror-frames, scrollwork, cornices, and even small console tables. A very fine example still survives at the Palazzo di Capodimonte (Museo e Gallerie Nazionale di Capodimonte) in Naples.

The French style developed, in the 18th century, into a very skillful synthesis of materials in which bronze and porcelain played an important part. Furniture was elaborately mounted in bronze with a marble top and was often decorated with porcelain plaques, as well. Clocks were made from porcelain vases. Jardinieres and vases were filled with porcelain flowers with bronze stalks and leaves. Veneering with rare woods reached its height, and decorative marquetry, often elaborately pictorial, was practiced. Much sought at this time was the marquetry of brass and tortoiseshell, which began with Boulle, although it was a revival of an Imperial Roman fashion. Tapestries covered the walls when these were not decorated with carved wood-panelling known as boiserie. Another form of wall-decoration, also employed in the making of furniture, was vernis Martin (Martin’s varnish), an imitation of Oriental lacquer that was extremely popular after 1730. The large salon de reception of the 17th century gave place to smaller, more intimate rooms, and more of them, and the furniture and decoration of the period are also on a smaller scale.

The Rococo style is remarkable for its flowers and its curves. Furniture legs were gracefully curved, and tops were cut into serpentine shapes. It is easy to see when the Rococo style ends, because chair legs at once become straight.

Typical Rococo features are seen in the interiors of the architect and decorator Germain Boffrand for the Hôtel de Soubise, Paris (begun 1732), where architectural form has been subordinated to the demands of the decoration; the cornice has disappeared, and walls curve into the ceiling, appliquéd with ragged C scrolls, garlands of flowers decked with ribbons, sprays of foliage, trellising, and shell motifs. The reduced scale of rooms and the reaction from monumental design result in elimination of the classical orders. Relatively small painted panels, idealizing peasant life, were enclosed in flattened moldings, silvered or gilt; pastel-coloured backgrounds prevented the smaller size of the salons from becoming too evident. The use of Chinese motifs typifies the search for novelty and blends well with the general lightness of style. The Cabinet de la Pendule (Room of the Clock) at Versailles (1738), designed by J. Verberckst, is another excellent example of French Rococo interior design. Gilles-Marie Oppenordt and François de Cuvilliés also were distinguished designers who worked with the best artists and craftsmen of the time.

The Rococo fashion spread across Europe to the courts of minor royalties, where many Frenchmen were employed to provide up-to-date buildings and schemes of decoration. In France the Gobelins factory became restricted mainly to the output of tapestries; equally fine work is seen in Aubusson and Beauvais carpets and tapestry. Improvement in glass manufacture resulted in larger mirror panels and brilliant crystal chandeliers.

The Louis XVI, or Neoclassical, style began, in fact, to take root before the death of Louis XV in 1774; Mme de Pompadour and her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, were among the first to be attracted by the new classical style in the 1750s. From 1748 onward the characteristically French regard for formality was stimulated by the archaeological discoveries at the sites of the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii and by the other surveys of classical remains published at this time.

It is sometimes forgotten that contemporary English styles also had influence in France, mainly through the published works of the architects Robert and James Adam. The asymmetrical, sinuous lines of the Rococo were slowly replaced by a more restrained form of decoration based once again on straight lines, right angles, circles, and ovals, arranged symmetrically. The lightness and fine moldings were retained, but the decorative forms were once more contained by the architectural framework. New motifs, many of them selected from antique Roman wall painting, decorated the panelling, in paint or in flat relief; palmettes, husks, urns, tripod stands, sphinxes, trophies of arms or musical instruments were frequently combined in the decorative schemes. Gilt bronze was used with wood and plasterwork for moldings and ornamental fillets, emphasizing the rectilinear character of the design. The work of J.-A. Gabriel in both the Chambre du Conseil at the École Militaire (begun 1751) and the Galerie Dorée, Ministère de Marine (begun 1762) may be cited as Parisian examples. The keynote of colouring, as well as design, is refined simplicity. Silk tapestry wall hangings with fine flower and ribbon motifs appear in pale blues, greens, rose, and lilac. Similar colourings were used for satin and velvet upholstery. The fine wood carving of the brothers Rousseau, gilt bronze work by Clodion (Claude Michel), and furniture pieces by David Röntgen, C.E. Riesener, and Jean Oeben show Louis XVI decoration at its highest. Apartments for Queen Marie-Antoinette at Versailles and her boudoir at Fontainebleau are full of this extravagant delicacy, soon to be obliterated in the French Revolution.

Spain

In Spain, Moorish influence mingled with subsequent Western classical styles to produce a unique flavour in decorative design. The style known as Mudéjar (c. 12th–17th century) was the early outcome of these blended Christian and Arab ideas and consists in essence of tiled floors and skirtings in polychrome, plain white walls, carved stucco friezes, and intricately decorated beamed wooden ceilings. The Duke of Alba’s palace, Sevilla (Seville), contains fine interiors decorated in this style.

Yellow tiles decorated with freehand motifs in blue became common in the 16th century. Tiles were often used on the ground floor of summer living rooms. Since fireplaces were seldom used in southern Spain, these rooms were vacated in the winter for the upper rooms.

The discovery of the New World, with the riches Spain subsequently drew from Mexico and Peru, created a period of Spanish ascendancy in the 16th century that encouraged building and coincided with the spread of Renaissance ideas throughout Europe. The influence of decorative craftsmen from Italy, together with the abundance of precious metal, encouraged the development of Plateresque (“silversmith-like”) decoration. This type of Renaissance decoration was first seen in church interiors, in the form of tombs, retablos (a decorative structure behind an altar), and ironwork screens. The Italian motifs were used in a totally non-Italian manner, encrusting the surfaces as in the late Gothic or Mudéjar style.

This unique Spanish blend of widely separate styles produced the fine interiors of the late 15th-century Panteón de los Duques del Infantado, Guadalajara, by Vazquez, and the Palacio de Peñaranda de Duero (c. 1530), probably by Francisco de Colonia, where interlaced ceiling beams and timber panels were supported on honeycomb cornices and finely ornamented friezes. (Unfortunately, much of this work is now damaged or destroyed.)

Smaller houses as well as palaces were built around a patio, usually colonnaded and with modelled or carved friezes, columns, and bracket capitals.

Window grilles, or rejas, often form an important part of the decorative scheme, the ironwork being traditionally of a high degree of excellence. Love of closely patterned decoration, enveloping all surfaces that could easily be carved or modelled, is an important characteristic of early Renaissance work in Spain, and of the contemporary Manueline style in Portugal. Similar, if rather coarser, work in this style flourished in the American colonies.

High Renaissance decoration in Spain was influenced deeply by the austere character of Philip II and his vast combined palace and monastery, El Escorial (1559–84), near Madrid. This was built for him by Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera. Much of the granite of which the monastery is built is left unadorned, and frescoed vaulted ceilings are the main decorative features of interior design.

A revival of decorative arts took place in the late 17th century under the influence of José Benito Churriguera, his family and followers. The Churrigueresque, which also remained a peculiarly Spanish style, expressed the Baroque feeling of the 17th century in extravagant polychrome. Surfaces were broken into scrolls, rosettes, volutes, and fantasticated moldings; bunches of fruit and flowers hung from broken or inverted cornice moldings; and the whole interior—for example, the Sacristy of the Cartuja, Granada (1727–64)—appears to drip with ornament. Here, even cupboards and doors were inlaid with silver, tortoiseshell, and ivory, and the only plain surface is the checkerboard tiled floor. Remarkable among domestic examples of this style is the Palacio del Marqués de Dos Aguas, Valencia (1740–44).

Under the Bourbons, French and Italian influence increased, as can be seen in the interiors of the Royal Palace at Madrid (1738–64), with its handsomely painted ceilings and brocade wall hangings. Here, also, subsequent changes of taste are echoed in the lighter Rococo treatment of the Gasparini Saloon. Toward the end of the 18th century the Neoclassical movement gained a limited footing, though regional styles continued to incorporate the Baroque and older forms.

Fine examples of Spanish colonial work exist in Mexico, Peru, and other South American countries where the Baroque was allied, as in Europe, with the Jesuits. Churches are painted and gilded with an exuberance equal to or even greater than that found in the mother country. Sometimes the churches are encrusted with tiles, and they always possess elaborate retablos.

Northern Europe

After spreading from Italy to France, Renaissance influence began to filter to Belgium and Holland, later reaching the various Germanic states and finally dying out in Scandinavia and Russia.

In the Low Countries and northern Germany during the 16th-century Renaissance, ornament was adapted to form an entirely individual style, which can be seen in the pattern books of the artists Hans Vredeman de Vries and Wendel Dietterlin. Strapwork (interlacing bands) and raised faceted ornament were widely employed, together with muscular, grotesque masked caryatids and distorted architectural features arranged in undisciplined designs. Chimney pieces, with overmantels carried to the ceiling, were embellished with marble columns and elaborate strapwork patterns, while similar ornaments flanked the doorways and enriched the ceilings. The great tapestries for which the Netherlands had long been famous were still in use, and Oriental carpets were spread as table covers and not used on the floors. Many town houses and civic buildings were comfortably appointed, yet without spectacular extravagances, and give an impression of modest prosperity. In Belgium the Musée Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp (1550), is unusually richly decorated, showing the influence of Spanish rule in the use of embossed leather as a wall covering. Large windows, with rectangular leaded lights, are again typical of a northern climate. Ceilings are beamed or plastered, and floors most frequently are of tiles on the ground floor and timber on upper floors.

The later styles of Baroque and the 18th-century tastes are copied from French models, particularly in Belgium. The Dutch, after achieving independence in the latter part of the 16th century, developed their decoration on more individual lines. Typical domestic interiors on a small scale are familiar through the paintings of the 17th-century artists Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch. The fine series of town houses by Daniel Marot and his sons in The Hague illustrate the cross-currents of the various styles; built at the turn of the 17th century, they were conceived in the Louis XIV, or Régence, manner, yet could be set down in 18th-century London without incongruity (and Marot did, in fact, work for a time in England). Fine stuccoed ceilings and overdoors, largely uncoloured, and wrought iron balustrading are characteristic.

In Germany the general trend was similar, but in southern Germany and Austria fresh impetus and individuality were given to Baroque and also Rococo design. French and Italian craftsmen worked throughout the 17th century on the many Catholic churches built in south Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia. The use of colour, fresco, and stucco that they introduced has its own particular flavour when seen in cool northern light.

Secular building from the early 18th century, in the hands of such architects as Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt and Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, makes use of much sculptural detail. Windows are round or oval, figures strain to support capitals, balustrades are carved in sculptural manner, and modelled niches contain larger than life-sized figures; all these give a feeling of movement reminiscent in its impact of Bernini’s work in Rome. Another characteristic was the enormous staircase hall, or Treppenhaus, which was one of the most notable interior features of German and Austrian Baroque and Rococo architecture. In the halls, colour was frequently confined to the painted ceilings, giving increased force to the novel and delicious colours of the rooms beyond. A vermilion dado or olive-green panels may be contrasted with white and gold. In the Nymphenburg Palace, near Munich (1734–39), by the Frenchman François de Cuvilliés, the Rococo reaches its crowning achievement: mirrors are framed in freely scrolled moldings, which in their turn are interspersed with trellising, garlands, baskets of fruit and flowers, cupids, birds, and fountains in silvered stucco on a pale blue or yellow ground, the whole evoking the essence of pastoral Romanticism.

Mingled influences from France, Holland, and England reached Sweden and Denmark in the mid-17th century and are seen in the Baroque and Louis XIV interiors of the Riddarhuset and Royal Palace in Stockholm and in the chinoiserie (Chinese-influenced decoration) of the Royal Palace of Drottningholm. Scandinavian interiors, however, largely continued to be of the traditional exposed timber boarding, hung perhaps with painted linen panels and brightened by woven chair and cushion coverings.

Russia imported foreign designers and styles in the late 17th and 18th centuries for the palaces built under the westernizing influence of Peter I the Great, his daughter Elizabeth, and Catherine II the Great. In the mid-18th century the Italian Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli designed the Tsarskoye (Detskoye) Selo (now called Pushkin), Peterhof, and Winter palaces in or near St. Petersburg, and A.B. Kvasov, S.I. Chevakinsky, and Rastrelli designed the Hermitage, also in St. Petersburg. Each worked largely according to his own current national styles. The same is true of the work of the British architect Charles Cameron at Tsarskoye Selo Palace and Pavlovsk Palace.

In many areas of Europe, Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo had little effect on interior decoration. In the Alpine lands, where wood was cheap and plentiful, traditional medieval methods continued for a long time. Wooden floors and ceilings and panelled walls, or partly panelled with plain plaster above, were the general rule. The moldings were bold, but carving was usually in low relief and often the woodwork was painted in bright colours.

England

The breakup of the feudal system during the Wars of the Roses and under Henry VII in the late 15th century had far-reaching effects on the social structure of the time and consequently on domestic buildings and their decoration. The new conditions necessitated a larger number of rooms, and a great hall, though still an important apartment, was no longer the focus of indoor life. Wider distribution of wealth gave rise to numerous country houses, and for the next 400 years the English excelled in their building and decoration.

The Italian style reached England in the early 16th century; the earliest example is the tomb of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey, designed by Pietro Torrigiani of Florence at the command of Henry VIII and completed in 1518. For the next 40 years or so, English craftsmen borrowed from the repertoire of Italian ornament, at first inspired by and imitating the Italian artists and craftsmen employed on royal works at Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex, and the Palace of Westminster, London, who used arabesque decoration, medallion heads, and amorini on panelling and plasterwork, often mingling them with the traditional Gothic motifs. The great hall at Hampton Court (1515–30) shows a combination of Renaissance carved and gilded detail with the traditional type of open timber roof, known as the hammerbeam roof, and windows divided into sections by vertical posts (mullions). In spite of Henry VIII’s example, however, the Gothic style died hard in England, lingering in the remoter districts well into the 17th century.

During the second half of the 16th century, as a result of the break with Rome, the Italian style was largely replaced by the distinctive Renaissance style of the Low Countries and Germany, fostered by the close religious, political, and economic relations between England and the Low Countries, the influx of immigrant workmen, and the circulation of Flemish and German pattern books. This new manner became the dominant influence in the decoration of panelling and plasterwork, characteristic features being intrinsic strapwork patterns, pyramid finials (sculptured ornaments used to terminate roof gables), raised faceted ornament, masks and caryatid figures, scrolls, and pilasters. Both the Italian and Flemish styles were adapted and naturalized to some extent by the English craftsmen, producing a new style that is peculiarly English.

At this time, also, the internal porch was introduced into many houses; this device excluded drafts from the room and also in some cases made it possible to reach a second room without passing through the first.

The frescoing of walls continued; of the few remaining examples, some show scenes from biblical and classical sources and incidents from local folklore. A good Elizabethan example depicting scenes from the story of Tobit was found at the White Swan inn at Stratford-on-Avon. Embossed, painted, and gilt leather was less used in England than on the Continent, but tapestries and such woven fabrics as velvet and damask for the wealthy and “says” (fabrics resembling serge) and “bayes” (baize) for people of more modest means were widely used as wall coverings. The inventories of Henry VIII’s palaces show the vast number of tapestries and various hangings possessed by kings and great men. Hangings of painted cloth were widely used as a cheaper substitute for tapestry; these, too, depicted incidents from biblical and classical sources and employed decorative motifs ranging from Gothic to Renaissance subjects. Nearly all of this “counterfeit arras” has perished. The plaited rush matting continued to be used as a floor covering in Elizabethan interiors.

Great chambers and long galleries, usually on the upper floors, are distinctively Elizabethan or Tudor and were used in many cases for work and recreation in bad weather. Barrel-vaulted ceilings occupying the roof space often increased the height of the rooms, as at Chastleton House, Oxfordshire (c. 1603). The plaster ceilings were treated elaborately; narrow interlaced bands formed geometrical patterns, with semistylized floral, arabesque, or heraldic motifs in the panels between.

The steep medieval winding newel stair (stair with central pillar from which steps radiate) in wood or, more often, stone was abandoned for the more spacious staircase with straight flights of stairs, easier in gradient and planned round an open well. This was most frequently constructed of oak, with carved newel posts (the upright terminating a flight of stairs) and balusters (individual columns in a balustrade) making the most of the opportunity offered for decoration and enrichment.

Toward the middle of the 16th century, a feeling for classic reserve was spreading and the late Renaissance period might have flowered under Charles I had not political upheaval checked the zest for fine building. The architect and stage designer Inigo Jones twice visited Italy and was one of the few north European architects completely to absorb the spirit and decorative repertoire of Italian Renaissance classicism. He introduced the new style in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, the Queen’s House at Greenwich; and with his associate and kinsman, John Webb, built Wilton House, Wiltshire.

At Wilton the Double Cube Room (c. 1649) shows the nobility of effect Jones was able to achieve in a small compass, for the dimensions of the room—60 by 30 by 30 feet (18 by 9 by 9 metres)—are not large, comparatively speaking. The basic influence is Italian, but the final result—with wide oak-boarded floor, and white- and gold-plastered and panelled walls designed to accommodate portraits by Van Dyke, the white marble fireplace, and the Corinthian doorcases—is truly English. The coved and painted ceiling, executed by Edward Pierce and Emanuel de Critz, plays a vital part in balancing the proportions of the room. Though Renaissance principles are demonstrated in design such as this, they were not fully developed in the country at large until the 18th century and the advent of the Palladian school of architecture and decoration (influenced by the 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio).

After the unsettled period of the Commonwealth, the Restoration introduced new Baroque influences from the Continent. These were fused with the restraining classicism (which was still considered to be a new style) to produce a successful balance of contrast. The designs of the great architect Sir Christopher Wren, though mainly for church and monumental buildings, relied for a great deal of their embellishment on the work of the fine artist-craftsmen such as Grinling Gibbons, sculptor and wood-carver, and Jean Tijou, ironworker, whose work can be seen in close association in St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the many country houses, large plain-surfaced oak wall panels provided the perfect foil to the grace and liveliness of Gibbons’ carved limewood swags (festoons), garlands, and picture borders, which incorporated flowers, fruit, musical instruments, cherubs, and monograms. In the words of the 18th-century writer Horace Walpole, Gibbons “gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements, with the free disorder natural to each species.” At Petworth house, Sussex, Gibbons’ genius may best be seen in the series of perfectly executed picture borders, which date from about 1690. Chimney pieces and doorcases were also decorated in Gibbons’ manner, and similar floral motifs can be seen on the plaster ceilings at Ham house, Wiltshire. This house, relatively modest in size, represents without ostentation or extravagance the height of luxurious interior decoration in the late 17th century and incorporates many of the decorative innovations of that time. Among these are the practice of painting wood panelling in imitation of marble or wood graining and of gilding the moldings. Wall hangings include tapestry, gilt and painted leather, and silk damask; there is elaborate parquetry (floors inlaid with woods in contrasting colours).

Paintings of allegorical subjects by Sir James Thornhill and Antonio Verrio ornament some of the more important buildings of the age, including the Painted Hall at the Royal Hospital in Greenwich, Wren’s additions to Hampton Court, and the great chamber at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. The intricate work of Daniel Marot, a French Huguenot architect who had worked for William III in Holland (see above Northern Europe), had a modest influence on the design of many small fittings and shelved cabinets to display china—the collecting of which was a favourite pastime of Queen Mary II. Imported lacquer panels were sometimes used for the panelling of rooms, in accordance with the Chinese taste of the period. In the last years of the 17th century and in the early 18th century the woodworker found his domain contracting. Through the influence of the grand tour and under the patronage of Lord Burlington, Italian influence predominated, the work of Inigo Jones was studied, and stone and stucco became more widely used, particularly in larger houses. The influence of the architect spread from the outside of the house to the interior decoration and even to the design of the furniture itself. Where wooden panelling was used, it was set in a simple framework. Pine largely replaced oak, and it was painted green, blue, brown, and other colours; walnut and mahogany were occasionally used for panelling. The increased use of stone and marble began with Sir John Vanbrugh, playwright turned architect, who, in his first commission at Castle Howard, Yorkshire (1699), showed an individual and masterly interpretation of Baroque, sculptural and yet with a certain grim epic quality. Applied decoration was kept to a minimum, a practice that he followed later at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, where the severe and spacious entrance hall, with marble-paved floor, ashlar-faced (i.e., faced with thin slabs of hewn stone) walls and columns, wrought-iron gallery railing, and frescoed dome, is the most impressive apartment in the building.

Stone staircases with wrought-iron balustrading came into common use, and by the latter part of the 18th century had almost entirely replaced the earlier, heavier timber stairs such as those at Wolseley Hall, Staffordshire, or Eltham Lodge, Kent, which had carved openwork balustrades or heavy timber balusters. In the smaller houses of the early 18th century, woodwork continued to provide the main decorative features. Wall panelling, moldings, window shutters, and many chimney pieces in simple painted pine echoed the comfortable elegance of the tall sash windows and well-proportioned rooms. Wealthier classes still employed Italian craftsmen, particularly for stuccowork, and the now familiar repertory of garlands, masks, and putti (cupids) was applied not only to the designs of Nicholas Hawksmoor, James Gibbs, and other architects of the quasi-Baroque group but also to the interiors of William Kent and the Palladian architects, whose influence became dominant toward the middle of the century. In such houses as Holkham Hall, Norfolk, designed in strictly classical manner by Kent in 1734, can be seen the results of extensive travel by both architect and owner. The magnificent entrance hall is again one of the most important rooms, designed on the general lines of a Roman basilica with apse (recess) and side colonnades. At Houghton hall, also in Norfolk, Kent designed fine suites of furniture for Colin Campbell’s interiors; these pieces are usually gilt, with acanthus scrolls, consoles, heads, and sphinxes; with feet and legs scrolled or of ball and claw type; and with upholstery in velvet or silk. The plaster ceilings are by Italian craftsmen, with gilded and painted ornament; the walls are dressed with classical plinth, pilasters, and frieze; and pedimented marble chimneypieces contain bas-relief panels above the mantelshelf.

Wall hangings were of tapestry, cut velvet, or watered silk and damask. Elsewhere, hand-coloured, wood-block-printed papers and papers with flocking (pulverized cloth) were coming into use as an economical substitute.

Although the Rococo style never fully established itself in England, many interiors were influenced by the asymmetrical motifs (rocaille) found in the designs of such French decorators as Nicholas Pineau and J.A. Meissonier. The stucco and carved decoration became lighter, more fanciful, and more tortuous in design. Though many Baroque motifs were still used, they were more delicately modelled, and the Rococo style was characterized by elaborate patterns of interlacing C scrolls combined with such naturalistic ornaments as flowers, foliage, shells, and rocks, arranged subtly in asymmetrical yet balanced patterns. The plasterwork and carved panelling were often painted in light colours and the detail picked out in gold.

Closely allied to the introduction of the French rocaille was the revival of the Chinese taste, or chinoiserie, for architects and designers, in search of further novelty, turned again to China for inspiration. Books on travel and topography, notably Jean-Baptiste du Halde’s General History of China, published in Paris in 1735 and translated into English in 1736, gave added stimulus. Pagodas, mandarin figures, icicles and dripping water, and exotic foliage and birds reached the height of Rococo invention. Chinoiserie was particularly popular for bedrooms, where elaborate chimneypieces and doorcases were set against the background of imported or imitation Chinese wallpapers, and the beds and windows were hung with Eastern textiles. Window hangings, with carved and gilded pelmets (valances), were becoming increasingly important, and at Harwood House, Yorkshire, the furniture designer Thomas Chippendale executed a series of pelmets with mock draperies also carved in wood and coloured to deceive the eye completely.

The Gothick taste, a further variation of the Rococo, was peculiar to England at this time. The Gothic Revival, engendered by antiquarian scholarship at the turn of the 17th century, later spread to literature and during the 1740s appeared in the more concrete forms of architecture and interior decoration. By the middle of the century the fashion was widely popular, and many houses, large and small, were in part Gothicized, both inside and out. As with chinoiserie, the products of this 18th-century vogue bore little resemblance to the original medieval models. Gothic details, originally worked in stone, were borrowed, adapted, often mingled with rocaille and Chinese motifs, and were executed in wood and plaster. At Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, Middlesex, Horace Walpole, leader of the “true Goths,” borrowed the designs of medieval tombs and turned them to designs for fireplaces and bookcases. Though this vogue fell out of general fashion in the 1760s, a few enthusiasts remained who carried the Gothick taste through until it was vigorously revived again in the 19th century.

About 1760 the Rococo style, with all its vagaries of taste, began to give way before the Neoclassical style, largely inspired and introduced by the architect Robert Adam, whose work reflected the newly awakened interest in classical remains. Adam returned from Italy in 1758, and, strongly influenced by both Roman architecture and interior decoration, he evolved a new style based on classical precedent, using as ornament a medley of paterae (plate-shaped motifs), husk chains, the ram’s head, the formalized honeysuckle, and other elements. His style of interior decoration was deeply influenced by the gay and delicate patterns of arabesques and grotesque ornament that he had seen in various classical remains in Rome and that had already been copied during the Renaissance by Raphael and others. Adam strongly criticized the Burlington (Palladian) school for using heavy architectural features in their interiors and replaced them with delicate ornament in plaster, wood, marble, and painting, against which, in its turn, criticism was levelled. Much of his work, it may be said, is applied decoration—pretty but without basic architectural quality. With Adam, the despotism of the architect over the craftsman was complete. No detail of decoration or furnishing escaped him; his rapid and precise draftsmanship covered the whole scheme, from the overall treatment of the walls and ceiling to the decorative details of the pelmets and grates. Even carpets were made to order, and often they repeated or echoed the design of the ceiling, bringing the whole room into harmony, as in the green drawing room in the manor house of Osterley Park in Middlesex or in the dining room at Saltram House in Devonshire (seephotograph). Wood was not often left unpainted, and, although the joinery was still admirable, the enrichment was frequently in composition or metal inlay. There were especially designed templefronted bookcases, and the plasterwork was often made a frame for the decorative paintings of such artists as Antonio Zucchi or Angelica Kauffmann.

At this time, cheaper and quicker methods of decoration began to be introduced; a considerable amount of the plaster decoration was cast from molds, and a composite imitation marble called scagliola was sometimes used for floors and columns, while cheaper woods were disguised by marbling and graining.

At the close of the century the Neoclassical style was further refined, the plaster relief decoration being simplified and lightened. The best of this style, strongly influenced by French decoration, can be seen in the work of the architect Henry Holland, who enlarged Carlton House, London, for the Prince Regent and built Southill in Bedfordshire. Holland, like Adam, was inspired by the classical monuments in Italy, where for some time he maintained a draftsman whose drawings of classical detail Holland incorporated in his plasterwork.

United States

The story of the domestic interior and its decoration in the United States is inseparable both from its own architectural development and from the story of English architecture and decoration, from which it was largely derived even long after the American Revolution. Any discussion of United States decorative design, therefore, must refer constantly to the architectural ideas that prompted change on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Contrary to popular legend, the log cabin was not the earliest shelter of the first English settlers. The turfed-over dugout hut of mud-chinked saplings, not unlike the Indian wigwam wickiup with the addition of a clay-daubed wooden chimney at one end, was probably the first home of the settlers in both Jamestown and Plymouth.

These primitive dwellings were speedily replaced by frame structures, copying the traditional small house of southeast England. At first a single room was flanked by a massive chimney (where brick quickly replaced wood and clay), but a second room was soon added on the opposite side of the chimney. The attic, later expanded into an overhanging second story, was reached by narrow winding stairs between the central entranceway and the chimney stack.

This development in New England is well represented by such vestiges as the Capen House, Topsfield, Massachusetts (1683) or the Old Iron Works (ironmaster’s) House, Saugus, Massachusetts (1636). The interior clearly reflects the structure, with its massive exposed oak corner posts, beams, and joists and its huge open fireplace, which served as the cooking and heating centre of the household. Inside walls were usually of undecorated lath and plaster, covering the studs and their clay or brick filling. Windows were small and originally of casement type, with small leaded panes in a wood frame. Small windows with low ceilings conserved heat in the severe winters. Floors of wide riven boards of pine, smoothed and sanded, replaced the beaten clay of the first shelters.

The furniture, with few exceptions, was simple and sparse. It was decorated with simple carved and turned ornament and touches of earth colours.

By the end of the 17th century, homespun textiles were supplemented by imported woven materials in the houses of the more affluent; these were used for curtains, table covers, bed hangings, and seat pads. Richly coloured damasks and velvets, enhanced by the unpainted wood and plaster surfaces, were found in Puritan New England and, probably to a greater extent, among the less austere New York Dutch and the comparatively wealthy tobacco planters of Virginia.

In houses south of New England, brick and stone tended to replace wood as a building material, though there were many smaller timber structures that have largely disappeared. In the Hudson River region, the traditional cottage of the Flemish and Huguenot settlers, long and low with steep pitched roof and extended eaves, became the typical farmhouse. At the same time, the narrow Dutch town house of brick with its stepped gable ends gave New Amsterdam, even after the English occupation, an appearance completely different from that of the English settlements to the north and south.

In the Dutch houses, windows tended to be larger and ceilings higher. The early fireplace, with its tiled border, surmounted with a deep hood, was flush with the wall instead of deeply recessed. Dutch features such as the horizontally divided door, the monumental cupboard, or kas, the built-in bed, and tiling and dishes of delftware gave the early New York interior an individuality that withstood English influence until well into the following century.

Similar national characteristics must have distinguished the early Swedish settlement on the Delaware, where, later in the century, the log cabin of the pioneer may have first appeared. The Swedish contribution was only temporary, for the settlement was absorbed by both the Dutch and the English. The early settlements of the English in east New Jersey were founded by migrants from New England who at first designed typical central-chimney houses but before the end of the century largely abandoned them for the Flemish type of house in the neighbouring Hudson River region. The first settlers in Pennsylvania, arriving in Philadelphia at the end of the century, built the type of town dwelling devised for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666.

In Virginia and the South, scant evidence remains of the early 17th-century house. Bacon’s Castle in Surry County, Virginia, with its projecting two-story porch in front and rear stair tower, built in brick about 1665, is all that remains of a colonial version of the small English Jacobean manor, though there must have been several other examples. From surviving evidence and deduction it is believed that panelled walls, carefully designed beamed ceilings, and ornamental plasterwork in colour were employed in larger Virginia houses. Yet, while the milder climate made loftier ceilings and larger rooms possible, it is unlikely that the ordinary early dwelling differed from its Northern contemporary except in its greater use of brick and in placing chimneys at the ends instead of at the centre of the structure.

Among the wealthy the principal articles of furniture were undoubtedly English imports; the more humble settler probably had to make do with articles of the simplest sort, but since few articles survive from this period, little is known about it. Certainly the scattered or rural character of the Southern settlements and their concentration on tobacco planting failed to encourage the early development of skilled crafts found in villages and towns of the Northern communities. By 1720 the design innovations of Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, as reflected in the Queen Anne style with its strong mingling of Dutch and Flemish elements, had already crossed the Atlantic. Wren’s influence is increasingly evident in the tendency to employ symmetrical design around an accented central feature and, particularly in the interiors, in the greater insistence on classic arrangement in the positions of openings and of panelling. Panelling, usually of pine in the north, was generally painted. Relatively deep and strong tones—red, blue, green, brown, and yellow—were used either singly or in combination, producing an effective background for the walnut furniture of the period.

Additional colour was introduced by more elaborate use of woven and embroidered textiles, in upholstery as well as draperies. Though woven carpets for floor coverings were rare even at midcentury, frequently their effect was achieved by stretched canvas painted with allover repeat patterns.

Throughout the colonies, furniture became more plentiful and varied. Chairs without arms took the place of stools, the cabriole (curved leg) largely replaced the turned leg, and small drop-leaf tables replaced the fixed-frame type. Bedroom furniture became differentiated with the development of the high chest (highboy) and the dressing table (lowboy), and later the case-top desk or secretary became the principal ornament of the living room. Tall mirrors with crested tops replaced the small, square, Jacobean style looking glasses of the 17th century, and portraits and prints came into more general use, sharing the wall space with bracketed candle holders or sconces. Artificial light still came mainly from small wick and grease lamps, but tallow and wax candles held in sconces, in adjustable metal and wood floor stands, or in candlesticks of brass or pewter (and occasionally in brass chandeliers) were used by the wealthier.

Though domestic comfort was improving, north of Virginia the large formal house or mansion remained a rarity until about 1750. In the South the wealth of the slaveholding planter made it possible for him to copy the early Georgian type of manor house in England. Great houses of two or three stories with side dependencies (outbuildings) became numerous. Stratford in Westmoreland County and Westover in Charles City County, Virginia, built about 1735 by the Lee and Byrd families, are early examples of the type. The elaborately panelled rooms of these mansions were furnished according to the latest London fashion. Probably only later in the century were these English pieces mingled with those from the cabinetmakers of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Between 1750 and the Revolution this Georgian phase reached its highest development. Though generally smaller and lacking the forecourt and dependencies of the southern mansion, the larger houses of the north, such as the Wentworth house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, mark perhaps the most distinctive achievements of colonial design and decoration by their apt translations into wood of brick and stone Georgian forms.

In the Middle Atlantic colonies, particularly in Philadelphia (which by 1760 had assumed urban leadership in the colonies), a type of domestic design midway between that of New England and Virginia had developed. There the English Rococo decorative style publicized by Thomas Chippendale received its most competent and original interpretation. This is well seen in Philadelphia interiors such as those of the Powel House (1765) and Mount Pleasant (1762) and in the work of cabinetmakers such as Thomas Affleck and Benjamin Randolph. By this time mahogany, with its fine grain, so receptive to carving and high finish, had largely replaced walnut as the principal cabinet wood. Inspired by this material and the challenge of London design, these Philadelphia craftsmen and their northern contemporaries, particularly John Goddard and Job Townsend of Newport, Rhode Island, brought their art to the highest level of perfection.

During the third quarter of the 18th century, the panelled interior reached its most elaborate form in the colonies. North of Virginia a fully panelled room was exceptional; wood panelling was reserved for the chimney breast and its flanking recesses or cupboards. In Virginia and the South, full panelling remained the rule. (At colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, surviving houses have been carefully restored and furnished, giving a complete picture of the comfortable panelled rooms dating from the middle decades of the 18th century.) In both North and South, however, the mantel and its overmantel were emphasized as a decorative unit, and the Baroque broken pediment became the usual crowning feature of both overmantel and doorway. Painted woodwork remained popular, but with softer and lighter tones, tending toward white and gray. Plaster wall surfaces were also painted. Block-printed and painted wallpapers were frequently used in the main rooms of these houses, and there are indications that fabric wall hangings were used also.

Plaster ceilings completely concealed the floor beams by the second quarter of the century, and after 1750 these were frequently decorated with ornament in low relief in the French or Rococo manner and hung with many-branched chandeliers of crystal. Floors of hardwood, occasionally parquetry, were more frequently covered with patterned rugs of European or Oriental origin.

During the 18th century imports of printed cottons or chintz in the Indian taste, and silk brocades and damasks, largely replaced the linen and woolen weaves of earlier days. Upholstered furniture, wing chairs and sofas, and elaborate draperies increased still further the richness of the fashionable interior.

As in Europe, the growth of tea and coffee drinking encouraged production of suitable silverware and the import of English and Oriental porcelains, which required corner and wall storage cupboards. Demand was also created for a variety of small movable tables and stands for tea and coffee services.

During this century the German settlers in Pennsylvania added their traditional styles of design to the dominantly English tradition of the colony, the effects being more evident in folk arts than in formal decoration. It was to this style and its development after the Revolution that the first American decorative glass of Henry William Stiegel and Frederick Amelung must be credited, as well as most of the decoration on early American pottery.